Echo Park

Echo Park designer Brendan Ravenhill is known for composing elegant, understated lighting from simple materials such as wood, brass and cloth cord. Our pick for our Handmade Holidays countdown to Christmas: Ravenhill's delicate handmade Hood sconce, which can be installed as a single light or in multiples (on either side of the bed, perhaps?). HANDMADE HOLIDAYS: More gift picks The sconce consists of a white oak frame and a matte white polyethylene shade held in place with nylon nuts and bolts.

Each morning this month, from 8 to 9, Stacy Elaine Dacheux has seated herself in a little roundabout in Echo Park, with low rosemary bushes behind her and a skinny cactus in front, at the spot where Lake Shore Avenue meets Effie and Lemoyne streets. On a folding chair, her legs arranged such that her right ankle rests on her left knee, she's improvised a desk on which to prop her vintage Smith Corona. Thus settled, she has typed - as cars and trucks have whizzed by and neighbors have walked by, often with dogs in tow. Dacheux is a writer and artist who had been thinking a lot about ritual when a friend asked if she'd like to give a talk at a Chinatown salon.

The fact that his brother was killed in a robbery - over marijuana - is something Steven Butcher can't seem to wrap his mind around. There's a possibility he never will. But this week may have been a step forward as Butcher, 23, received a one-word text from his mother about the 2010 execution-style killing of his brother Matthew Butcher : Guilty. Daniel Deshawn Hinton, 31, and Raymond Lemone Easter, 27, were found guilty Tuesday of first-degree murder and premeditated attempted murder with special circumstances, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.

Elliott Smith needed a cigarette. The singer-songwriter was onstage at Largo on Fairfax Avenue not long after smoking had been banned in California bars. "He'd played about 10 songs and said, 'I'm going to go take a smoke break, does anyone want to join me?'" remembered Largo's longtime owner Mark Flanagan of the 1998 show. "He put his guitar down and walked out to the street. Then 60 people got up and gathered outside. People who didn't even smoke were smoking outside just to be near him. " Smith died 10 years ago this week in his Echo Park home.

In 2008, Carlos Morales, an El Sereno, Calif., resident, weighed 400 pounds. Today, he weighs 200 pounds and is not only a CicLAvia participant but an enthusiastic cyclist who rides his bike 1,000 miles a month. “Cycling is my passion, it saved my life,” said the 53-year-old Morales, who was among thousands who participated in Sunday's bike festival centered in downtown Los Angeles. Joined by fellow members of the East Side Bike Club, founded in June 2008, Morales cycled on what he nicknamed the “10-footer” bike because five people pedal it at once.

A Los Angeles County court last week granted a permanent injunction against six gangs in Echo Park and its surrounding neighborhoods, according to the city attorney's office. The injunction prohibits known members of the gangs from associating with each other in public, possessing firearms or narcotics, or possessing alcohol in public, officials said. It also prohibits gang members from possessing aerosol paint containers, felt-tip markers and other items that can be used to apply graffiti.

September 7, 2013 | By Randall Roberts, Los Angeles Times Pop Music Critic

Bands change. Bassists leave, to be replaced by others. As Spinal Tap can well attest, drummers vanish, overdose, spontaneously combust. After the genius Who percussionist Keith Moon died, former Faces drummer Kenney Jones, no slouch, tried to fill in. The Rolling Stones haven't toured with Bill Wyman in ages. Dude from Sublime died, but Sublime (with Rome) still tours. The Doors went on the road with Ian Astbury of the Cult as their lead singer, for heaven's sake. These are challenging events for fans, not to be taken lightly.

The Los Angeles City Council on Friday signed off on Mayor Eric Garcetti's nominees to the Board of Police Commissioners, including one who questioned the fairness of a gang injunction proposed for neighborhoods northwest of downtown. Council members heaped praise on Garcetti's four appointees during back-to-back hearings, first in the Public Safety Committee and then during the council's regular meeting. But they also engaged in an unscheduled discussion of gang injunctions with commission appointee Sandra Figueroa-Villa, who runs the family-services nonprofit group El Centro del Pueblo in Echo Park.

The Los Angeles City Council on Friday signed off on Mayor Eric Garcetti's nominees to the Board of Police Commissioners, including one who questioned the fairness of a gang injunction proposed for neighborhoods northwest of downtown. Council members heaped praise on Garcetti's four appointees during back-to-back hearings, first in the Public Safety Committee and then during the council's regular meeting. But they also engaged in an unscheduled discussion of gang injunctions with commission appointee Sandra Figueroa-Villa, who runs the family services nonprofit group El Centro del Pueblo in Echo Park.

There's a new Bob Ross-style art show on the Internet. It's called "Drawing Stories With Travis Millard," and it features the eponymous artist sitting at a wooden desk by a cozy fire, telling strange tales from his life while simultaneously drawing them. The intro for the series is a campy riff on nature shows from the 1980s. Millard runs through the hills of L.A., takes pictures with an old camera and plays with a cat. The drawing portion of the show is tongue-in-cheek PBS refinement.